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Joseph S. Cotter
Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr. (February 2, 1861 - March 14, 1949) was an African-American poet, prose writer, playwright, and community leader,. He has been called as “Kentucky’s first Negro poet with real creative ability.” Life Cotter was born in Nelson County, Kentucky at the start of the American Civil War]], and raised in Louisville, Kentucky.Ward, William S. A Literary History of Kentucky. Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press. 1988, pp. 99-100. His father, Michael J. Cotter, was a white man of Scots-Irish ancestry, and his mother, Martha Vaughn, was a freeborn black of mixed heritage, 1 of several children born to an African slave mother and an English-Cherokee father. Education After completing the 3rd grade, Cotter dropped out to help support his family. Cotter worked in manual labor and various odd jobs until the age of 22, when he joined the newly created pioneer Louisville night school for black students. Cotter attended night school for 10 months, earning his high school diploma and teaching credentials.Anthony Duane Hill, ed., An Historical Dictionary of African American Theater. Prevessin, France: Scarecrow Press, 2008. According to Metzger (1989): “There is little specific information about either the extent of Cotter's education — it seems certain that he never attended college or completed a degree-granting program — or his professional life as an educator. Although some writers had felt that Cotter must have attended college, his love of writing and of literature might just have well stemmed from the many books that his mother had read to him as a child. And although Cotter's contributions to black education are now seen as extremely important, at the time he was working, few details of such work were preserved for later study. What is now certain is that Cotter became a respected writer, although when he first began to write is not clear.” Career in education Once becoming qualified to teach, Cotter found work in the Cloverport Public School system. The conditions at Cloverport were extremely poor. Cotter made the best of teaching children in a small 1-room school house with dirt flooring and no heating. This marked the start of Cotter’s long dedication to the education of black children and a commitment to his community. After 2 years teaching at Cloverport, Cotter taught at a nearby private school before moving to the Louisville public school system 2 years later. His began working in the Louisville system at Western Colored School, which was located in an all-black neighborhood. Here Cotter would teach for the next 4 years, from 1889 to 1893. Attesting to his belief in black education, in 1893 Cotter founded the Paul Lawrence Dunbar School, named after the his friend, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Cotter served as principal of this black high school until 1911, whereupon he took the position of principal at Samuel Coleridge-Taylor School and held the post until 1942. Along with his 53 year career as an educator, Cotter worked for racial advancement with many local and national organizations, including Louisville Colored Orphans Home Society, Kentucky Educational Association, Author’s League, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and NAACP.Bardolph, Richard. Negro Religious and Educational Leaders in Who’s Who in America, 1936-1955. The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 26, No 2 (Spring 1957), pp. 182-192. Literary contributions Cotter's literary contributions include 9 published works. Among these are 4 volumes of poetry: A Rhyming (1895); Links of Friendship (1898); A White Song and a Black One (1909); and Collected Poems (1938). Cotter's other publications include: Sequel to "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," and Other Poems (1939), a collection of poetry and prose; Negroes and Others at Work and Play (1947); Caleb, the Degenerate; A Play in Four Acts: A Study of the Types, Customs, and Needs of the American Negro (1903); and 2 collections of prose, Negro Tales (1912), and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of Colored Parkland or “Little Africa,” Louisville, Ky., 1891-1916 (1934).Sherman, Joan R. Invisible Poets: Afro-Americans of the Nineteenth Century, University of Illinois Press, 1989, pp. 164-71. Cotter also often contributed to periodicals such as the Louisville Courier-Journal (from 1884), National Baptist Magazine (1894–1908), Voice of the Negro (1904-7), Southern Teachers Advocate (Kentucky; 1905-6), and Alexander’s Magazine (1909). Family On July 22, 1891, Cotter married Maria F. Cox, a fellow teacher, with whom he had 4 children: Leonidas, Florence, Olivia, and Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr. (a distinguished poet and playwright in his own merit).Metzger, Linda. Senior ed. Black Writers. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Inc. Booktower. 1989. Writing According to William S. Ward, "Cotter’s writings have never won him high recognition, but he has fared rather well at the hands of black historians." Cotter's writing is known to utilize both dialect and standard English to advocate race advancement, "to be gained by a mixture of race pride, humility, hard work, education, and a positive, optimistic outlook." Historian Joan R. Sherman also notes that a common theme seen in Cotter's writing, from his earliest poems to The Negro’s Ten Commandments (1947), is that "he consistently advocated this gospel: :(5) Read not thyself out of toiling with the hands, and toil not thyself out of reading; for reading makes one akin to the ox. Therefore he who simply dreams is dying, and he who dreams not is already dead. :(7) Learn thou the worth of a dollar and how to keep it from damning thee. :(9) Socially thou shalt go no nearer thy brother than he comes to thee. Aversion in him should slay the thought of advance in thee. :(10) If thou hast a mind to live by being honest, industrious, frugal and self-sacrificing, remain in the South where thou shalt surely reap thy character’s worth; but if thou hast a mind to die through sloth, ignorance and folly, get thee far from it, for the burden of burying such is becoming intolerable.” Publications Poetry * A Rhyming. Louisville, KY: New South Publishing, 1895. * Links of Friendship. Louisville, KY: Bradley & Gilbert, 1898. * Sequel to "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," and other poems. Louisville, KY: Bradley & Gilbert, 1906; New York: Henry Harrison, 1939. * A White Song and a Black One. Louisville, KY: Bradley & Gilbert, 1909. * Collected Poems of Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. New York: Henry Harrison, 1938; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. Plays * Caleb, the Degenerate: A play in four acts: A study of the types, customs, and needs of the American Negro. Louisville, KY: Bradley & Gilbert, 1903 **New York: AMS Press, 1973; Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2001. *''The Chastisement'' (e-book). Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2002. *''Caesar Driftwood (e-book). Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2002. Short fiction * ''Negro Tales. New York: Cosmopolitan Press, 1912; Miami, FL: Mnemosyne, 1969. Non-fiction *''Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of Colored Parkland or “Little Africa” Louisville, Ky., 1891-1916.'' Louisville, KY: I. Willis Cole Publishing, 1934. Collected editions * Negroes and Others at Work and Play: Poems, aphorisms, tales, sketches, plays, songs. New York: Paebar, 1947. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au: Joseph Seamon Cotter 1861-1949, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 8, 2013. See also *African-American poets *List of U.S. poets *List of English-language playwrights References *Brooks, A. Russell. “Joseph Seamon Cotter, Sr.,” In Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 50: 62-70. *Hatch, James V., ed. Black Theatre, U.S.A.: Forty-Five Plays by Black Americans. New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1974. *Kerlin, Robert T. "A Poet from Bardstown." South Atlantic Quarterly 20 (July 1921) 213-21. *Shockley, Ann Allen. “Joseph S. Cotter, Sr.: Biographical Sketch of a Black Louisville Bard,” College Language Association Journal 18 (March 1975), 327–340. *Townsend, John Wilson. "Kentucky's Dunbar: Joseph Seamon Cotter." In Lore of the Meadowland, 23-26. Lexington, Ky.: J.L. Richardson, 1911. Notes External links ;Poems *"William Lloyd Garrison" * Joseph Seamon Cotter, Sr. 1861-1949 at the Poetry Foundation *Joseph Seamon Cotter at PoemHunter (39 poems) ;Books *Works by Joseph Seamon Cotter at Project Gutenberg ;About *Joseph Seamon Cotter, Sr. (1861-1949) at BlackPast.org *Joseph Seamon Cotter, a poetic pioneer" at African-American Registry Category:1861 births Category:1949 deaths Category:African-American writers Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:People from Nelson County, Kentucky Category:19th-century poets Category:20th-century poets Category:African American poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets